Saying Goodbye is Hard To Do

Last October, I launched a vegan bath and beauty shop called Gnarly Whale. I needed something new to do – a new challenge to test my creativity – and my hope was that it would be a hobby that I enjoyed while I continued with my blog, consulting, graphic design and BBN as my main focus.

Unexpectedly, it took off even faster than I could handle it. It nerve-wracking and exciting all at the same time. It forced me to make a lot of tough decisions on where my time would be spent (both in my personal life and in my business life, which had quickly turned into the same thing.) I passed more responsibility off to the Admin Team that was helping manage the community and waiting for things to slow down to resume what I still considered to be my “normal life.” It never did slow down and instead, continued to grow. We reached milestones I barely dreamt of reaching and were given new HUGE opportunities numerous times this year already.

And while I love all of the exciting things arising from it, it was beyond what I was expecting and has forced me to reassess a lot of things and make some hard decisions. I stopped doing consulting, I stopped doing graphic design outside of personal projects and now I’ve decided it’s in my best interest and the community’s best interest that I step away from the Better Blogger Network.

I can no longer devote the time and dedication that the community deserves on a consistent basis. More often than now, I’m forced to do what I can to keep it afloat without helping it grow like I had hoped I would be able to from the start. This was by far the hardest of the decisions for me to make as I know the potential in this community is MASSIVE. There are so many wonderful people here and so many great resources for people. Because of all of this, I approached our Admin Team to see if anyone was willing and able to take this community on as their own to keep it going for everyone here. Unfortunately everyone was in the same boat that I am – wanting to be able to run the amazing community, but not having the time or money to run it alone.

So we need your help.

At the end of March, the Better Blogger Network will shut down completely if we don’t find someone that’s willing and able to take it over. We’re looking for someone that wants to dedicate their time and effort to running a community full of bloggers who are looking for ways to grow and connect. Someone that is friendly, personable, determined, blog savvy, and feels comfortable managing a variety of people/groups. Someone who loves blogging, the blogging community, and getting to know others within the blogging community. Someone who has a drive to connect with others and help others do the same. Someone that truly resembles the ideas behind a “better blogger.”

There is a great deal of time that goes into running this community. I can’t give an exact range because it depends on if you do it alone, if you have a group of people helping you, your knowledge of Ning, your knowledge of social media and blogging, how much you want the community to grow, and other various site management preferences. You’ll need to be willing and able to dedicate hours each week to for successful management of the community though.

There are also various costs involved with it (ranging between $25 – $50+ a month) depending on your preferences, but we are not charging anything to take over the site. All we’re looking for is the right person to take over the community and expand upon what we have done. If we find that person, we don’t feel that there is a need to profit from it as our hope is for this community to continue to grow and flourish.

Here’s what we need:

For anyone that’s interested in more information about taking over the site, please send us an email at betterbloggernetwork@gmail.com by March 11th letting us know you’re interested in hearing more details. We’ll send you more of the specifics (costs, time-frame, etc.), answer any questions you may have, and tell you what information we need from you in order to be considered. By March 15th, we’ll decide if we have a candidate that is the right fit for running the community and announce it then. If no one is interested/able, we will close the site down by March 28th.

To everyone that’s been involved in the community – be it an Admin, a spotlight member, a sponsor, or even if you’re just a member – thank you. This was by far one of the toughest decisions for me to make because of how much time has gone into this community and how much I’ve loved being able to be such a huge part of it. You can still find me on Twitter or on my personal blog After Nine To Five. And if the community is taken over by someone else, you’ll probably still see me around here from time to time!

- Ashley